BeerSmith upgrade

[C-Rider]

I've been using BS=2 for a year or so. Well since it came out. Is there any reason to upgrade to #3?

 

[BobBailey]

Beersmith 3 isn't an upgrade. It's a separate product. BS3 supports cider, wine and mead brewing and integrates the water tools into the recipe design. I feel it's worth the price. I use BS3 for recipe formulation and to keep track of my pipeline and BS2 to store recipes by style. I only use the cloud feature to transfer between the 2. Both programs can be run side by side.

 

[tntpilsner]

Wish I could help you. I got #3 as my first experience with BS and I love it. I'm not sure what the new additions are but I think he has mead and cider support now, which I need to try.
EDIT- I was typing when BobBailey answered, haha. The water tool is great, I rely on it heavily since I have hard well water.

 

[Rev2010]

I've been using BS=2 for a year or so. Well since it came out. Is there any reason to upgrade to #3?

Personal opinion, unless you're also doing cider/wine/mead I'd say no. I don't agree at all with Beersmith's pricing scheme. Brad has moved to the ever-hated subscription model and the one time fee does not include major revision updates, only minor (see image below). I already bought Beersmith 1 and Beersmith 2 but I for one am done paying more and one of the major reasons is he now spends most his time working on the App version and has said so himself. My story is I upgraded my Linux to a new version. Beersmith 2 crashed a couple of times so I tried out Beersmith 3. It was stable and didn't crash but I couldn't read some of the fields since there was a flaw in his coloring scheme that didn't work with dark themes. I reached out to him, he confirmed it and said exactly, "I think it is a poor choice of colors on my part - I have the colors fixed so they don't work well with some default color choices". He then recommends using white color schemes and says he's been busy trying to fix the Android Oreo timer issue. Fine I get that was a major issue that needed resolving first but in the past with BS2 I had an issue with mouse scrolling not working which he identified as a bug and took about 8-10 months to fix. Anyhoo, I tried out version 3 and didn't see any noticeable improvements for the way I use it and decided not to spend the money. Oddly, Beersmith 2 has now been stable and hasn't crashed for months so perhaps a Linux update better works with the program and now I have no need to upgrade.

But dude, $35 for every version upgrade? IMO.... Nope.

Rev.

 

[C-Rider]

Big Mahalo guys. I don't do mead or cider so I'll just stick w/what I have. It works great for my ales.

 

[Calder]

I'm happy with BS 1.4. Haven't had a need to make an upgrade ...... maybe there is something out there that I didn't know I needed.

I'm still happy with my one-time $18 investment many years ago (I can't remember when I bought it, could be 10 years).

 

[Punx Clever]

I'm happy with BS 1.4. Haven't had a need to make an upgrade ...... maybe there is something out there that I didn't know I needed.

I'm still happy with my one-time $18 investment many years ago (I can't remember when I bought it, could be 10 years).

I'm using 1.4 as well... would like to import up to date yeast databases and up to date BJCP guidelines though.

 

[Pavel]

I noticed the subscription model, and right away was disappointed with the direction this software is heading in. I don't mind paying good money for good software, I'm not cheap, but I will never rent software. It's the greed plague of our times. I have version two of Beersmith, and will look to other packages if ever I find that version 2 does not have something I want or if it stops working on a future OS version. I don't, and never will, do business with companies that go to the rent model - under any circumstance.

 

[day_trippr]

You can buy the Version 3 upgrade. I did. It'll be supported until the next major upgrade, which if past is prologue should happen in another 5 years.

fwiw, there are a number of improvements vs BS2 that imo make the upgrade cost worthwhile...

Cheers!